Part one of Jonas Vingegaard’s Giro-Tour double mission is complete. Now he’s turning his attention to part two: winning the Tour de France for the first time since 2023.

The Visma-Lease a Bike rider wrapped up a comfortable GC victory at the Giro d’Italia on Sunday, beating Felix Gall of Decathlon CMA CGM by more than five minutes. During three weeks of racing in Italy, Vingegaard won five of the six mountain stages as he dominated proceedings with apparent ease.

In claiming the maglia rosa, the Dane became only the eighth man in history to win all three of cycling’s Grand Tours.

The 29-year-old is targeting even more history this summer, as he seeks to become just the ninth man to win the Giro d’Italia and the Tour de France in the same year. To do so he must beat his eternal rival Tadej Pogačar, who is going for a joint-record fifth yellow jersey.

At the end of the Giro, Vingegaard confidently declared that “I believe I will be in very, very good shape for the Tour de France.” That belief was echoed by Visma’s head of performance Mathieu Heijboer, who told The Athletic that “for sure, there will be a closer battle between Jonas and Tadej than last year”.

In 2025, Pogačar won four stages and beat Vingegaard by 4:24. “I am really confident we will have a proper fight again,” Heijboer added. “This will be the sixth year in a row that we will see those two fight for spots one and two in the Tour.”

With just over four weeks until the Tour gets under way with a team time trial in Barcelona, The Athletic looks at what Vingegaard needs to do to reduce the pair’s Tour head-to-head record to 3-4.

This article was published by The Athletic/New York Times in June 2026. You can read the full article here.